Your PR Architect

In an earlier life, I reviewed films for a small-town daily newspaper. It was pre-Rotten Tomatoes. Pre-internet. So if you wanted to know if a movie was worth your $5, you read newspapers or hoped Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel reviewed it for their TV show. USAF Snipers by By Tech. Sgt. Bonnie A. White (USAF)  (http://www.af.mil/weekinphotos/040730-02.html) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Today, I don't review films. And I try not to wade in to debates about controversial films. I saw The Interview on pay-per-view. And I may see American Sniper , Clint Eastwood's latest film. But I'm unlikely to write about either movie. I gave up reviewing films because I found scribbling in the dark distracting. I wasn't experiencing or enjoying the on-screen stories. I found myself analyzing the product, much the way testers at Consumer Reports test toasters and microwaves. In a way, I was contributing to the PR buzz for feature films. And I decided that I wasn'

Radio Shack, where you bought your last blank cassette in 1998, could file for bankruptcy reorganization in the next few weeks. Retailers have had a rough start in 2015. Macys, J.C.Penney, and Target Canada, which never got its supply chain issues under control, all are shuttering stores. Coolcaesar at the English language Wikipedia  [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons Radio Shack, however, has been losing ground for years, squandering opportunities to rebound. When it lost the computer retailing business to Best Buy, it went into cellphones and wireless phones. And remote controlled toys. And digital cameras. And even created a buzz-worthy TV ad for the 2014 Super Bowl . Of course, RS' marketing never drew crowds. Check out this 1980's ad for the Color Computer III, and you'll see why. Why did Radio Shack falter? A few reasons: its aging customers finally learned ho

I don't do resolutions. Unless I'm performing as John Hancock in a community theatre production of "1776." But for 2015, I have a modified mindset regarding social media. What I read about my friends on Facebook is not their real lives, and I'm not going to compare my life to theirs. Your Facebook friends will post their successes, their celebrations, family photos, and maybe snarky comments about Kardashians and Biebers. Those friends are less likely to post about their cramps. Their firings. Their financial losses. Their private addictions. Queen, c. 1985, by Thomas Steffan (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0  (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) via Wikimedia Commons What we see on Facebook and other social media are a kind of PR version of their lives. Their "best of" experiences. It's like a CD of Queen's  Greatest Hits . You'll hear "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and

By Drapplesi (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons This isn't a rant. It's not a diatribe. It's simply my point of view. I don't carry a smartphone. They're easy to get and operate. But I resist using one. Why? Because it quickly becomes an intruder in my real life. And, if we're having a conversation, it's intruding in your life, too. I believe in the art of listening over the artifice of texting. I believe in building relationships between placing my order and the arrival of the meal. I believe in eye contact, not eyestrain. And I find the creepy blue glow of a smartphone casts an unflattering pallor over the face of the person using the phone. In a dim restaurant, it looks like a scene from "The Walking Dead." Yick. Yes, I've used Yelp to help me find interesting restaurants. But I don't want Yelp to tell me whether